Plural marriage, the priesthood, and exaltation

[pogi]

On 12/10/2021 at 7:56 PM, JLHPROF said:

We will never understand these things until we can view marriage as they began to at that time.

To us in the Church today all heterosexual marriage is seen as ok with God, just differing degrees.

At that time a sharp distinction was made between civil marriage, priesthood marriage for time only, and eternal marriage.

To us we see "ahhh three marriages, polyandry.".  They came to see only one as valid at a given time depending the configuration.  But that doesn't fit the narrative people like to push with this "polyandry".

We either learn to see marriage through their eyes or we continue to shake our heads in a futile attempt to understand them. 🤷

Even if we try to see things through their lens at that time, it doesn't solve all the problems - there are still difficult questions surrounding Zina Huntington's sealings to Joseph and Brigham.  1) Zina was civilly married to, lived with, and had children with a faithful Latter-day Saint man.   Why was the opportunity to be sealed to his wife for time and/or eternity stolen from Henry Jacobs?  Joseph was sealed to her for eternity when she was pregnant with his first child, and Brigham was sealed to her for time, and Henry was perpetually sent on missions to seemingly keep him out of the picture.

Edited December 13, 2021 by pogi

[juliann]

18 hours ago, Rain said:

Or...those extra women could be stay at home moms with children in school or older women whose husbands often die younger than they do.

The number, by itself, of women to men in the temple tells one nothing.  

 

Have we ever had a debate on this where this dopey excuse doesn't come up? Why in the world would anyone think that a small slice of time and a smaller piece of humanity says one thing about the rest of the populace throughout time and place? Does the fact there were no women in ancient temple holy places tell us that there will be polyandry? We used to see the claim that there would be polygamy because so many men died in wars. At least that doesn't show up anymore...but the lack of logic is just as apparent in these other nuggets advocates come up with. 

[Olmec Donald]

19 minutes ago, juliann said:

I am certain not one of these men are imagining a situation of being surrounded by women who have the same priesthood and power that they do.

Yup! 

In my opinion women ALREADY have the same priesthood and power in the eyes of God as men, and it is our belief systems which have some catching-up to do.  (I think I can back up that claim from an LDS perspective if anyone would like.) 

Edited December 13, 2021 by Olmec Donald

[juliann]

On 12/10/2021 at 9:56 PM, JLHPROF said:

 

At that time a sharp distinction was made between civil marriage, priesthood marriage for time only, and eternal marriage.

 

At what time? There is one scholar who has made time vs eternal the pinnacle of his theories to disprove Nauvoo polyandry yet others say there was no early distinction, a sealing was a sealing regardless of what it was called. 

[MacGyver]

29 minutes ago, juliann said:

You are unaware of the damage this bizarre reluctance to do away with polygamy does to women here and now. Think it through. 

What do you mean by "this bizarre reluctance to do away with polygamy?"

The Church hasn't practiced polygamy in over 120 years. So how can any modern woman be damaged by it? Fear of eternal polygamy, or even a future return of polygamy in the church, isn't being damaged. 

And if past polygamy and the possibility of eternal polygamy is that troubling to many women, why not take it to the Lord in prayer and ask for peace and understanding about the subject? If you pray earnestly, God will hear and answer your prayer. 

 

[Calm]

38 minutes ago, pogi said:

and Henry was perpetually sent on missions to seemingly keep him out of the picture.

Webbles pointed out above that the total time Jacobs was on a mission is not as much as would be expected from the number given some were just weeks long.

How were mission lengths determined?  Were they sent to a place and they came home if they figured the work was done by their own decision or did they require being released (given possible mail issues if moving around, that could be difficult)?

From webbles:

Quote

 It says "Henry served at least eight missions between May 1839 and May 1845 varying from two weeks to four and a half months."  So, per that reference, yes he did have 8 missions but they were all extremely short.  Also, the first mission was before he married Zina, so he only served 7 missions as her husband

If on average his missions were two months long, 7 missions means 14 months or a total of little over a year.  At four months, that would be 28 months or two years and a third.  She was married (as in living as his wife) for five years, I believe, so a substantial part of their marriage but unlikely to be a majority of it.

And Zina had a choice there, so she is the one ‘stealing’ as much as any man involved.  She was not a doll being passed around.  Not every woman wants to stay married to the man they have had a child with, sometimes personalities just don’t mesh. Not too many mothers had that choice back then, though it was easier for fathers to just take a walkabout. 
 

Not saying it was  not a strange situation and given how ‘anti theft’ Brigham Young was later when he taught no man could take the wife or children of another after he died if they were sealed even if the miscreant (he really trashed men who would try to seduce another man’s woman) convinced the wife she was better off with him seems like BY would be more protective of Jacobs. But he also let women divorce pretty easily without always the consent of the husband iirc. 
 

Consistency was not that common Imo in both teachings and practice of polygamy.  It comes across to me as playing by ear and reasoning often changing as needed.

I do believe Joseph was inspired, but for what purpose and how well he followed the inspiration and how much he made assumptions of what should be done based on his culture and immediate situation I don’t know. 

Edited December 13, 2021 by Calm

[Calm]

 

18 minutes ago, MacGyver said:

And if past polygamy and the possibility of eternal polygamy is that troubling to many women, why not take it to the Lord in prayer and ask for peace and understanding about the subject?

You appear to assume they haven’t.  The majority of those I have talked about it with have spent many hours in sincere prayers asking for peace, even at times without understanding if necessary. 

Not all prayers are answered immediately. God has his own time and purposes when answering prayers, it is his Will, not the supplicant’s, that determines the timeline for the most part I am guessing from seeing the results of fervent prayers from many faithful women and men in the past on many subjects and needs. 

Edited December 13, 2021 by Calm

[smac97]

43 minutes ago, MacGyver said:

Quote

You are unaware of the damage this bizarre reluctance to do away with polygamy does to women here and now. Think it through. 

What do you mean by "this bizarre reluctance to do away with polygamy?"

The Church hasn't practiced polygamy in over 120 years. So how can any modern woman be damaged by it? Fear of eternal polygamy, or even a future return of polygamy in the church, isn't being damaged. 

And if past polygamy and the possibility of eternal polygamy is that troubling to many women, why not take it to the Lord in prayer and ask for peace and understanding about the subject? If you pray earnestly, God will hear and answer your prayer. 

I would also like to see clarification on what is being proposed here ("do away with polygamy").  Is it some sort of repudiation of the doctrine?  Disavowal of it?  Decanonization?  

Back in 2016 we had a discussion about Carol Lynn Pearson's position that polygamy "is indefensible" and that "it was an error and needs to be corrected."  

What is meant by "do away with polygamy"?

Thanks,

-Smac

[pogi]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Webbles pointed out above that the total time Jacobs was on a mission is not as much as would be expected from the number given some were just weeks long.

It is the timing that looks terribly suspicious.  He was sent away just a couple months after being sealed to Joseph.  And right after he was sent away to England, Zina moved in with Brigham and was sealed to him.

1 hour ago, Calm said:

And Zina had a choice there, so she is the one ‘stealing’ as much as any man involved.  She was not a doll being passed around.  Not every woman wants to stay married to the man they have had a child with, sometimes personalities just don’t mesh. Not too many mothers had that choice back then, though it was easier for fathers to just take a walkabout. 

  I agree that Zina had a choice.  It is a choice I don't think she really wanted to make though - much like Abraham made a choice to sacrifice his son, though it was a choice he didn't want to make.  For her it was a "sacrifice".  In her words:

Quote

 I made a greater sacrifice than to give my life for I never anticipated again to be looked upon as an honerable woman by those I dearly loved...

She had turned Joseph down 3 times while she was still courting Henry and chose to marry Henry.  I think this shows that she did love Henry and there isn't much evidence that she was ever really unhappy with him, or that Henry ever did anything worthy of divorce.  She did seem to believe this was required of her by God and was the will of God though. 

Quote

 

A Question of Happiness
One of the recurring explanations for the dissolution of Henry and Zina’s marriage is that it was an unhappy union. This explanation seems to have first surfaced in the written record in the late 1870s or early 1880s. In 1883 a picture entitled “Representative Women of Deseret” was published which showed many of the leading women of the Relief Society. Among these was Zina D.H. Young. In the following year, Augusta Joyce Crocheron wrote a short book as an adjunct to the picture, containing short biographical sketches for each of the women. In the information about Zina, the statement is made that “Sister Zina was married in Nauvoo, and had two sons, but this not proving a happy union, she subsequently separated from her husband.”71 The verbiage, according to the author, relied heavily on earlier statements in the Woman’s Exponent.

This verbiage was repeated in later years by other authors72 and by Zina herself in her 1898 interview with John W. Wight.73 The theme was picked up and repeated in later twentieth-century publications and studies, as well.74

Was Zina’s marriage to Henry really unhappy? It may be more fruitful to ask what is meant when unhappiness is asserted. Was Zina unhappy with Henry’s treatment of her? Was Zina unhappy living in poverty for her five years with Henry? Did Zina simply have unhappy memories of the time and project those memories onto the marriage with Henry? We really don’t know.

From first-hand contemporaneous accounts in the 1840s it appears that Zina was not necessarily unhappy in her marriage. To be sure, we can reasonably impute unhappiness from her diary entries that recount family sickness or death of loved ones. But none of this unhappiness–which seems the lot of many during that period–does she seem to blame on Henry. Instead, she is a supportive wife and he is as attentive a husband as he can be.

It is also possible that Zina’s views on the marriage changed over time–as she acquired a more stable life in Utah she may have been able to compare it to her old life and thereby come to the conclusion that she was unhappy. It is also possible that Zina felt that explaining her first marriage as unhappy was an easier way to deal with the questioning of friends, family, and strangers than to explain the complex reasoning that led to her and Henry’s decision to dissolve the marriage.75

Whether Zina really decided her lot had been unhappy or it was created it as convenient explanation, we will never know. All we do know is that the marriage does not appear, on critical review, to have had any outward signs of unhappiness; it does not seem to have been any more troubled than those of her contemporaries.

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/conference/august-2006/zina-and-her-men-an-examination-of-the-changing-marital-state-of-zina-diantha-huntington-jacobs-smith-young

 

One thing is for certain though.  Henry LOVED Zina.  His history and letters to her are difficult to read (I read them on familysearch).

Regardless of whether or not Zina was manipulated, it is difficult to understand how Henry was not wronged in all of this.  Had Zina and Henry been given the choice to be sealed as an eternal family, I think they both would have jumped at the chance over being sealed to Joseph.  It wasn't really presented to them as an option.  Joseph stated that it was revealed to him that she would be his wife.  Period.  There is just so much that I have a hard time grasping in all of this. 

 

 

 

Edited December 13, 2021 by pogi

[katherine the great]

43 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I would also like to see clarification on what is being proposed here ("do away with polygamy").  Is it some sort of repudiation of the doctrine?  Disavowal of it?  Decanonization?  

Yes please. 

[rongo]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

I would also like to see clarification on what is being proposed here ("do away with polygamy").  Is it some sort of repudiation of the doctrine?  Disavowal of it?  Decanonization?  

 

23 minutes ago, katherine the great said:

Yes please. 

So much for the reassurance of the people who pooh-pooh slippery slope concerns. 

Priesthood ban, polygamy, what's next? Law of chastity? Book of Abraham? Book of Mormon? 

I don't believe that these things need to be repudiated or disavowed, for one thing, but aside from that, it's the camel storming into the tent. Not just the nose, and then the face . . . 

[smac97]

26 minutes ago, katherine the great said:

Quote

I would also like to see clarification on what is being proposed here ("do away with polygamy").  Is it some sort of repudiation of the doctrine?  Disavowal of it?  Decanonization?  

Yes please. 

Okay.  That's one. Other participants?  What is it you want the Church to do relative to polygamy?

Thanks,

-Smac

[bluebell]

11 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Okay.  That's one. Other participants?  What is it you want the Church to do relative to polygamy?

Thanks,

-Smac

For me, who doesn't struggle with polygamy itself that much, I think i'd like acknowledgement that polygamy can paint a bleak picture of God's view of women, and a focus on resolving that issue.  I don't think that polygamy needs to be repudiated to resolve it, but saying "everything will be fine after you die" should be retired as a response to women's pain.

[smac97]

9 minutes ago, bluebell said:

For me, who doesn't struggle with polygamy itself that much, I think i'd like acknowledgement that polygamy can paint a bleak picture of God's view of women, and a focus on resolving that issue. 

I think we have to trust that this "picture" is erroneous.  That it is inaccurate because we are looking at the subject "through a glass, darkly."

9 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I don't think that polygamy needs to be repudiated to resolve it, but saying "everything will be fine after you die" should be retired as a response to women's pain.

I continue to be unsure about what is being asked of the Church.

Thanks,

-Smac

[why me]

Here is something about Zina from the Church's website. It seems that she was happy. I don't seem to get the idea that she was exploited by Joseph or Brigham. And so what is the problem? She also said that she was unhappy with Henry. And she was faithful. There is much to learn from her. She also had a personal revelation about plural marriage which convinced her about the principle.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/zina-d-h-young?lang=eng

Edited December 13, 2021 by why me

[bluebell]

16 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I think we have to trust that this "picture" is erroneous.  That it is inaccurate because we are looking at the subject "through a glass, darkly."

I think we hope that it's an erroneous picture, but when you add in the physical evidence, hope is not always enough.  You've got words against actions.  It's hard to fault some women for struggling to reconcile what they've been told with what they've seen and what they read in the scriptures.

Quote

I continue to be unsure about what is being asked of the Church.

1) Acknowledge why polygamy can be a painful subject in this life for some women.

2) Give women actions and examples that show that God does not value His sons more than His daughters, and not just words.  Not just hope.

[smac97]

3 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I think we hope that it's an erroneous picture, but when you add in the physical evidence, hope is not always enough. 

"Physical evidence" of "bleak picture of God's view of women"?  What is that?

3 minutes ago, bluebell said:

You've got words against actions.  It's hard to fault some women for struggling to reconcile what they've been told with what they've seen and what they read in the scriptures.

I'm not "faulting."  But I'm not necessarily buying into subjective interpretations, either, nor am I keen on signing onto the calls for the Church to respond to such interpretations.

I'm also curious if there is any thought given over to the difficulties men endured regarding polygamy.  See, e.g., this story about my great-great grandfather, Alexander F. Macdonald:

Quote

However, this quiet life did not continue. Rumors had circulated in the East that the Mormons were a subversive lot, dominated by a sinister cabal of leaders headed by Brigham Young. An army was dispatched to Utah to put down the alleged Mormon rebellion, and Utah was thrown into turmoil. By 1858, Johnston's Army had arrived and established Camp Floyd west of Utah Lake. In 1859, a federal judge opened court in the county seat at Provo, and Alexander Macdonald was called in to serve on a grand jury. However, that was just a ruse to deceive him, and as soon as he arrived at the court he was arrested along with a few other men. All those involved knew there was nothing to charge him with, and that the authorities merely wanted to intimidate him into implicating Brigham Young, their real goal, in several crimes. However, the federal authorities picked the wrong man in A. F. Macdonald. Although they kept him under armed guards 24 hours a day, most of the time with a cocked pistol held against his temple, Alexander resisted their efforts to lie or betray his leader. He knew that Brigham Young was not guilty of any crime other than espousing and leading an unusual and unpopular religion. Still they kept A. F. Macdonald imprisoned, and finally after a month, fearing the incensed citizenry of Utah Valley would rescue Macdonald by force, the authorities decided to transfer him to Camp Floyd. They tied him straddled to a cannon and hauled him for several days to the army headquarters. Army diarist Albert Tracy records: 

 

“Of our convoy of prisoners, one McDonald, stood not less than six feet three, and towered above the guard like a giant. . . . He strode with an air of martyr-like defiance, and seemed to be high in favor with the lookers on. The remaining prisoners were downcast, or, perhaps, dogged of manner, and seemed less confident.” 

 

Clearly, Alexander was not threatened although he was treated cruelly by his 7th Regiment captors. Thomas Ackley, another  military officer recorded in his journal how Alexander Macdonald, sleeping in the guard house hall, exhausted after the long march from Provo, was nearly murdered by an imprisoned soldier. Walking into the room with his ball and chain,  “One of these fellows let his iron ball drop, . . . intending for it to strike the Mormon in the head, and would have killed him had it not been that he threw up his arm to save himself, but broke his arm.” (The diarist later identifies the injured man as Alexander Macdonald who was denied medical treatment for his broken arm.) 

 

Ackley later expressed amusement at observing Macdonald and other prisoners working “. . . with large sacks of sand tied to them, others with large logs of wood strapped to their backs for punishment. . . . .”

 

Later Alexander was confined to small adobe room, barely large enough for him to stand, and with only a small pile of straw as bathroom facilities. A frantic Elizabeth tried to visit him and bring him bedding and food, but she was turned away.  One of the officers had Macdonald brought to his quarters at night to secretly teach him the doctrines of Mormonism. Alexander later told his wife that the young captain believed the teachings but feared that joining the church would jeopardize his military career. Eventually the Army was embarrassed into releasing A.F. Macdonald and he returned to his wife and sons in Springville. 

See also here:

Quote

The conviction of Rudger Clawson in 1884 marked the beginning of a 12-year period known as "the Raid," in which more than 1,400 indictments were issued. Mormons challenged anti-polygamy statutes. The Supreme Court repeatedly upheld them. Mormons refused to testify (or suffered convenient amnesia) in court; went into hiding; and, by the hundreds, were sent to prison.

And here:

Quote

In the nineteenth century, more than a thousand Mormon men went to prison for polygamy-related offenses, and many families fled to Canada and Mexico. In 1890, the United States Supreme Court sanctioned the nationwide confiscation of virtually all Mormon property, essentially authorizing that the movement be crushed. 

And here:

Quote

In Reynolds v. United States, the Court ruled that while the First Amendment protected a right to believe as one pleased, it afforded no protection to religious conduct. If there was one kind of conduct that Victorian America had no doubt as to its right to regulate, it was sex. Polygamy, insisted the Court, was a degenerate practice “of Asiatic and of African people” that the state could eradicate.

Over the next decade, Congress passed ever-harsher laws aimed at the Latter-day Saints. New crimes to facilitate conviction were created. Hundreds of Mormons were sent to prison, and hundreds of others went into hiding as federal agents poured into Utah. The Supreme Court upheld laws depriving Mormons of the right to vote, and Congress dissolved the Mormon Church as a legal entity, confiscating its property.

Many men and women both paid a high price.

I've said this previously:

Quote

I have a lot of compassion and empathy for people who are not comfortable with the concept of polygamy.  I'm not particularly comfortable with it.  I do not understand it.  So much of the Restored Gospel comports with my general, gut-level sense of "right" and "wrong," but polygamy . . . doesn't.

However, neither does animal sacrifice.

Neither does Nephi slaying Laban.

Neither does the slaying of Nehor.

Neither do the deaths described in 2 Kings 2 ("Go up, thou bald head...").

And so on.

There are all sorts of things in play here.  Context matters.  A lot.  Historical context.  Social/cultural context.  Scriptural context.  Gospel context.  So does accuracy in conveyed information.  So do my personal life experiences, as well as the importance of properly characterizing those experiences as finite, blinkered, and not altogether accurate (rather than definitive, perfected and utterly, pristinely correct).

In other words, my sense of unease is not the most reliable moral barometer in the world.  So objectivity helps.  So does research.  Lots of research.  And patience.  And humility (at the prospect that my "ick factor" may be more about me than about the thing I find to be "icky").  And a willingness to re-assess previous assumptions.  But most of all . . . faith.  Lots and lots of faith.
...
Having qualms about polygamy is understandable from a sociological/cultural perspective is understandable.  My parents recently returned from a mission in Zimbabwe, where polygamy has long been a part of their culture.  Members of the Church seem to have very little unease about the Church's polygamous past.  The discomfort is, in the end, personal and subject and cultural.  That's not, I think, a flaw in the doctrine.

Rejecting the doctrine outright, however, is rather hard to reconcile with D&C 132 (and Jacob 2).

That emphasized bit is helpful to me.

3 minutes ago, bluebell said:

1) Acknowledge why polygamy can be a painful subject in this life for some women.

Hasn't that already happened?  See, e.g., here:

Quote

Although some leaders had large polygamous families, two-thirds of polygamist men had only two wives at a time. Church leaders recognized that plural marriages could be particularly difficult for women. Divorce was therefore available to women who were unhappy in their marriages; remarriage was also readily available.
...
Like the beginning of plural marriage in the Church, the end of the practice was gradual and incremental, a process filled with difficulties and uncertainties.

And here:

Quote

After receiving a revelation commanding him to practice plural marriage, Joseph Smith married multiple wives and introduced the practice to close associates. This principle was among the most challenging aspects of the Restoration—for Joseph personally and for other Church members. Plural marriage tested faith and provoked controversy and opposition. Few Latter-day Saints initially welcomed the restoration of a biblical practice entirely foreign to their sensibilities. But many later testified of powerful spiritual experiences that helped them overcome their hesitation and gave them courage to accept this practice.

Although the Lord commanded the adoption—and later the cessation—of plural marriage in the latter days, He did not give exact instructions on how to obey the commandment. Significant social and cultural changes often include misunderstandings and difficulties.  Church leaders and members experienced these challenges as they heeded the command to practice plural marriage and again later as they worked to discontinue it after Church President Wilford Woodruff issued an inspired statement known as the Manifesto in 1890, which led to the end of plural marriage in the Church. Through it all, Church leaders and members sought to follow God’s will.
...
When God commands a difficult task, He sometimes sends additional messengers to encourage His people to obey. Consistent with this pattern, Joseph told associates that an angel appeared to him three times between 1834 and 1842 and commanded him to proceed with plural marriage when he hesitated to move forward. During the third and final appearance, the angel came with a drawn sword, threatening Joseph with destruction unless he went forward and obeyed the commandment fully.
...

The first plural marriage in Nauvoo took place when Louisa Beaman and Joseph Smith were sealed in April 1841. Joseph married many additional wives and authorized other Latter-day Saints to practice plural marriage. The practice spread slowly at first. By June 1844, when Joseph died, approximately 29 men and 50 women had entered into plural marriage, in addition to Joseph and his wives. When the Saints entered the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, at least 196 men and 521 women had entered into plural marriages. Participants in these early plural marriages pledged to keep their involvement confidential, though they anticipated a time when the practice would be publicly acknowledged.

Nevertheless, rumors spread. A few men unscrupulously used these rumors to seduce women to join them in an unauthorized practice sometimes referred to as “spiritual wifery.” When this was discovered, the men were cut off from the Church. The rumors prompted members and leaders to issue carefully worded denials that denounced spiritual wifery and polygamy but were silent about what Joseph Smith and others saw as divinely mandated “celestial” plural marriage.
...
The women who united with Joseph Smith in plural marriage risked reputation and self-respect in being associated with a principle so foreign to their culture and so easily misunderstood by others. “I made a greater sacrifice than to give my life,” said Zina Huntington Jacobs, “for I never anticipated again to be looked upon as an honorable woman.” Nevertheless, she wrote, “I searched the scripture & by humble prayer to my Heavenly Father I obtained a testimony for myself.”
...
Plural marriage was difficult for all involved. For Joseph Smith’s wife Emma, it was an excruciating ordeal.
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Some Saints also saw plural marriage as a redemptive process of sacrifice and spiritual refinement. According to Helen Mar Kimball, Joseph Smith stated that “the practice of this principle would be the hardest trial the Saints would ever have to test their faith.” Though it was one of the “severest” trials of her life, she testified that it had also been “one of the greatest blessings.” Her father, Heber C. Kimball, agreed. “I never felt more sorrowful,” he said of the moment he learned of plural marriage in 1841. “I wept days. … I had a good wife. I was satisfied.”

The decision to accept such a wrenching trial usually came only after earnest prayer and intense soul-searching. Brigham Young said that, upon learning of plural marriage, “it was the first time in my life that I had desired the grave.” “I had to pray unceasingly,” he said, “and I had to exercise faith and the Lord revealed to me the truth of it and that satisfied me.” Heber C. Kimball found comfort only after his wife Vilate had a visionary experience attesting to the rightness of plural marriage. “She told me,” Vilate’s daughter later recalled, “she never saw so happy a man as father was when she described the vision and told him she was satisfied and knew it was from God.”

Lucy Walker recalled her inner turmoil when Joseph Smith invited her to become his wife. “Every feeling of my soul revolted against it,” she wrote. Yet, after several restless nights on her knees in prayer, she found relief as her room “filled with a holy influence” akin to “brilliant sunshine.” She said, “My soul was filled with a calm sweet peace that I never knew,” and “supreme happiness took possession of my whole being.”

Not all had such experiences. Some Latter-day Saints rejected the principle of plural marriage and left the Church, while others declined to enter the practice but remained faithful. Nevertheless, for many women and men, initial revulsion and anguish was followed by struggle, resolution, and ultimately, light and peace. Sacred experiences enabled the Saints to move forward in faith.

...

The challenge of introducing a principle as controversial as plural marriage is almost impossible to overstate. A spiritual witness of its truthfulness allowed Joseph Smith and other Latter-day Saints to accept this principle. Difficult as it was, the introduction of plural marriage in Nauvoo did indeed “raise up seed” unto God. A substantial number of today’s members descend through faithful Latter-day Saints who practiced plural marriage.

Church members no longer practice plural marriage. Consistent with Joseph Smith’s teachings, the Church permits a man whose wife has died to be sealed to another woman when he remarries. Moreover, members are permitted to perform ordinances on behalf of deceased men and women who married more than once on earth, sealing them to all of the spouses to whom they were legally married. The precise nature of these relationships in the next life is not known, and many family relationships will be sorted out in the life to come. Latter-day Saints are encouraged to trust in our wise Heavenly Father, who loves His children and does all things for their growth and salvation.

 

Here:

Quote

For these early Latter-day Saints, plural marriage was a religious principle that required personal sacrifice. Accounts left by men and women who practiced plural marriage attest to the challenges and difficulties they experienced, such as financial difficulty, interpersonal strife, and some wives’ longing for the sustained companionship of their husbands. But accounts also record the love and joy many found within their families. They believed it was a commandment of God at that time and that obedience would bring great blessings to them and their posterity, both on earth and in the life to come. While there was much love, tenderness, and affection within many plural marriages, the practice was generally based more on religious belief than on romantic love. Church leaders taught that participants in plural marriages should seek to develop a generous spirit of unselfishness and the pure love of Christ for everyone involved.
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The passage of time shaped the experience of life within plural marriage. Virtually all of those practicing it in the earliest years had to overcome their own prejudice against plural marriage and adjust to life in polygamous families. The task of pioneering a semiarid land during the middle decades of the 19th century added to the challenges of families who were learning to practice the principle of plural marriage. Where the family lived—whether in Salt Lake City, with its multiple social and cultural opportunities, or the rural hinterlands, where such opportunities were fewer in number—made a difference in how plural marriage was experienced. It is therefore difficult to accurately generalize about the experience of all plural marriages.

I guess I'm suspecting an endless regression.

3 minutes ago, bluebell said:

2) Give women actions and examples that show that God does not value His sons more than His daughters, and not just words.  Not just hope.

I don't understand.  Your statement presupposes that the Church teaches that God "value{s} His sons more than His daughters."

Thanks,

-Smac

[JLHPROF]

3 hours ago, juliann said:

At what time? There is one scholar who has made time vs eternal the pinnacle of his theories to disprove Nauvoo polyandry yet others say there was no early distinction, a sealing was a sealing regardless of what it was called. 

In the days of polygamy, especially the 1840s and 1850s when polyandry is being claimed.

Early members (including those so called polyandrists) did not consider multiple husbands as valid in the eyes of God.

I've provided these quotes below before showing this.
For example there is no indication that Eleanor McLean for example viewed herself in any way a polyandrist when she married Parley P. Pratt.  Nor did any of the others.

In fact, I'd love to see ANY reference where a female saint in the days of polygamy considered herself to have two legitimate husbands before God simultaneously.  ANY reference.  CFR please.
I see no reference they considered themselves polyandrous in any way, even if we might.

This is why I say we need to see marriage as they did to understand these marriages.  Zina Huntington is the one most often referenced.
Zina married Henry in a civil ceremony, which would not have been seen as binding later per the references.  Then married Joseph as her eternal husband.   Brigham married her in a Levirate marriage for time only two years after Joseph died to raise seed unto Joseph.
I won't deny her relationship with Henry between Joseph's death in 1844 and her marriage for time to Brigham in 1846 muddies the water since they had a child in that period.  But he was her only living "husband" at that time too.
 

Quote

 

- Joseph Smith viewed as invalid those marriages not sealed by his blessing...Claiming sole responsiblity for binding and unbinding marriages on earth and in heaven, he did not consider it necessary to obtain civil marriage licenses or divorce decrees.

- John D. Lee - "About the same time the doctrine of 'sealing' was introduced...the saints were given to understand that their marriage relations with each other were not valid...If their marriage had not been productive of blessing and peace, and they felt it oppressive to remain together, they were at liberty to make their own choice, much as if they had not been married."

- Increase McGee - "it is now the woman's privilege to choose whom she sees fit; if she likes the one she had been living with, she can keep him; if not, she is at liberty to ship him and take another;"
(Van Wagoner's Mormon Polygamy pgs 42 & 46 in the chapter on polyandry.)

Eleanor J. McLean married Parley P. Pratt in polygamy while still married to Hector McLean, although she was separated from him. When asked if she had divorced McLean before she married Pratt, she answered: “No, the sectarian priests have no power from God to marry; and a so called marriage ceremony performed by them is no marriage at all; no divorce was needed…
(Stephen Pratt, “The Last Days of Parley P. Pratt,” Brigham Young University Studies (1975): 20.)

 

 

Edited December 13, 2021 by JLHPROF

[pogi]

1 hour ago, why me said:

 And so what is the problem?

You don't think Henry was wronged? 

1 hour ago, why me said:

She also said that she was unhappy with Henry. 

From an apologetic perspective:

Quote

A Question of Happiness

One of the recurring explanations for the dissolution of Henry and Zina’s marriage is that it was an unhappy union. This explanation seems to have first surfaced in the written record in the late 1870s or early 1880s. In 1883 a picture entitled “Representative Women of Deseret” was published which showed many of the leading women of the Relief Society. Among these was Zina D.H. Young. In the following year, Augusta Joyce Crocheron wrote a short book as an adjunct to the picture, containing short biographical sketches for each of the women. In the information about Zina, the statement is made that “Sister Zina was married in Nauvoo, and had two sons, but this not proving a happy union, she subsequently separated from her husband.”71 The verbiage, according to the author, relied heavily on earlier statements in the Woman’s Exponent.

This verbiage was repeated in later years by other authors72 and by Zina herself in her 1898 interview with John W. Wight.73 The theme was picked up and repeated in later twentieth-century publications and studies, as well.74

Was Zina’s marriage to Henry really unhappy? It may be more fruitful to ask what is meant when unhappiness is asserted. Was Zina unhappy with Henry’s treatment of her? Was Zina unhappy living in poverty for her five years with Henry? Did Zina simply have unhappy memories of the time and project those memories onto the marriage with Henry? We really don’t know.

From first-hand contemporaneous accounts in the 1840s it appears that Zina was not necessarily unhappy in her marriage. To be sure, we can reasonably impute unhappiness from her diary entries that recount family sickness or death of loved ones. But none of this unhappiness–which seems the lot of many during that period–does she seem to blame on Henry. Instead, she is a supportive wife and he is as attentive a husband as he can be.

It is also possible that Zina’s views on the marriage changed over time–as she acquired a more stable life in Utah she may have been able to compare it to her old life and thereby come to the conclusion that she was unhappy. It is also possible that Zina felt that explaining her first marriage as unhappy was an easier way to deal with the questioning of friends, family, and strangers than to explain the complex reasoning that led to her and Henry’s decision to dissolve the marriage.75

Whether Zina really decided her lot had been unhappy or it was created it as convenient explanation, we will never know. All we do know is that the marriage does not appear, on critical review, to have had any outward signs of unhappiness; it does not seem to have been any more troubled than those of her contemporaries.

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/conference/august-2006/zina-and-her-men-an-examination-of-the-changing-marital-state-of-zina-diantha-huntington-jacobs-smith-young

 "Joseph Smith had taught Zina the doctrine of plural marriage, and thrice asked her to marry him. She declined each time, and she and Henry were wed 7 March 1841."

In a seeming effort to emphasize her refusal of Joseph and her choice of Henry, she asked Joseph to marry them.   Joseph never showed up to marry them (surprise) and the Mayor had to step in.  When asked why he never showed up, Joseph said that "the Lord had made it known to him that she was to be his Celestial wife."

"On 27 October 1841, Zina was sealed to Joseph Smith by her brother, Dimick Huntington. She was six months pregnant by Henry, and continued to live with him."

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Question:_Why_would_Joseph_be_sealed_to_the_wife_of_someone_who_was_not_only_married_to_someone_else,_but_pregnant_with_her_husband's_child%3F

6 months after she married Henry, and while still pregnant with his child, Joseph continued to pursue her.  He used her brother to tell her that an angel of the Lord commanded it and would slay him if he did not obey.  She said that her choice to marry Joseph was a "sacrifice greater than giving her life".  

There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that she married Joseph because she was unhappy with Henry at the time.  They were newly weds and pregnant.  Henry was a faithful husband and Latter-day Saint who deeply loved his wife.  How was he not wronged in this?

Edited December 14, 2021 by pogi

[Rain]

40 minutes ago, smac97 said:

"Physical evidence" of "bleak picture of God's view of women"?  What is that?

I'm not "faulting."  But I'm not necessarily buying into subjective interpretations, either, nor am I keen on signing onto the calls for the Church to respond to such interpretations.

I'm also curious if there is any thought given over to the difficulties men endured regarding polygamy.  See, e.g., this story about my great-great grandfather, Alexander F. Macdonald:

See also here:

And here:

And here:

Many men and women both paid a high price.

I've said this previously:

That emphasized bit is helpful to me.

Hasn't that already happened?  See, e.g., here:

And here:

Here:

I guess I'm suspecting an endless regression.

Your examples of men struggling are not on the same subject as women struggling with the idea of living it in the next life.  (I may have missed one).  Most are not actually even about the struggles of living it in this life, but rather the things that surround living it - the military and legal examples are not actually about living in polygamy, but how they are treated because they lived in polygamy.  And yes, it was tough for them, but it shows you are missing what bluebell is talking about.

40 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I don't understand.  Your statement presupposes that the Church teaches that God "value{s} His sons more than His daughters."

Thanks,

-Smac

She is talking about "actions" not teachings.  The actions, overall, show more value in the men.  

I used to wonder why we needed to constantly tell women they were valued by God.  I felt that value deep inside of myself so I didn't get why so many of the women didn't.   This one post of bluebell's really makes it so much more clear why to me. Now I get it.

[smac97]

36 minutes ago, Rain said:

Your examples of men struggling are not on the same subject as women struggling with the idea of living it in the next life.  (I may have missed one). 

I wasn't aware we were talking about polygamy in the next life.  Nevertheless, the principle remains the same.  There are plenty of men who struggle with the idea, too.

36 minutes ago, Rain said:

She is talking about "actions" not teachings.  The actions, overall, show more value in the men.  

Not sure what is being said here.

36 minutes ago, Rain said:

I used to wonder why we needed to constantly tell women they were valued by God. 

Again, plenty of men need this reassurance as well.

36 minutes ago, Rain said:

I felt that value deep inside of myself so I didn't get why so many of the women didn't.   This one post of bluebell's really makes it so much more clear why to me. Now I get it.

I'm trying to understand.

Thanks,

-Smac

[MacGyver]

4 hours ago, Calm said:

 

You appear to assume they haven’t.  The majority of those I have talked about it with have spent many hours in sincere prayers asking for peace, even at times without understanding if necessary. 

Not all prayers are answered immediately. God has his own time and purposes when answering prayers, it is his Will, not the supplicant’s, that determines the timeline for the most part I am guessing from seeing the results of fervent prayers from many faithful women and men in the past on many subjects and needs. 

I'm not making any assumptions one way or the other. 

I know that God will answer the sincere prayer if the individual has enough faith. 

5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.

7 For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.

James 1:5-7

You are right that God doesn't always answer right away. One reason he delays answering may be that the individual is not ready to receive the answer. But anyone can earnestly pray for increased faith and peace of mind over this or any other concern and God will give it to them. You don't need to understand plural marriage or any other controversial doctrine or practice to receive peace and to be given the strength to press forward with faith. 

 

 

 

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

I'm also curious if there is any thought given over to the difficulties men endured regarding polygamy.  See, e.g., this story about my great-great grandfather, Alexander F. Macdonald:

Why are all these examples external influences upset about polygamy and not men having a hard time within the practice itself. Seems like an apples and oranges thing.

If I found a principle like say fasting onerous and difficult and found it hurt more than it helped that is one thing. I am likely to lose faith in the principle. If armed men persecute me for fasting or just a belief in fasting that doesn’t really shake my conviction about the principle itself. It just means they hate the principle and are taking it out on me.

[smac97]

9 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Why are all these examples external influences upset about polygamy and not men having a hard time within the practice itself.

Plenty of those, too:

Quote

Smith's revelation was questioned by many of his fellow Mormons. Oliver Cowdery, who had taken down the dictation of much of The Book of Mormon, accused Smith of adultery.

And here:

Quote

In Nauvoo, Smith initiated some of his close and trusted associates into the new and everlasting covenant. Brigham Young later claimed that “it was the first time in my life that I desired the grave, and I could hardly get over it for a long time.” Smith himself claimed that he took the fateful step only after God had repeatedly commanded him to do so. According to Eliza R. Snow, one of the most renowned of his plural wives, the prophet hesitated to carry out the fateful commandment “until an angel of God stood by him with a drawn sword, and told him that, unless he moved forward and established plural marriage, his priesthood would be taken from him and he should be destroyed.”

And here:

Quote

Emma Smith's horrified reaction to polygamy was the rule, not the exception, among the devout Saints. Joseph’s brother Don Carlos said, “Any man who will teach and practice the doctrine of spiritual wifery will go to hell; I don’t care if it is my brother Joseph.”
...
Apostle John Taylor called plural marriage “an appalling thing to do. The idea of going and asking a young lady to be married to me when I already had a wife!”

And here:

Quote

“The response of the men who were introduced into polygamy between 1841 and 1846 was anything but enthusiastic. The same was true of the women who were offered the chance of becoming plural wives. Apart from the fact that the new system collided with moral assumptions they had grown up with, there were practical difficulties that made polygamy less attractive. For the men to support additional wives was seldom easy. And for women to be married on this basis without being legally acknowledged as wives can hardly have been reassuring. It was not the kind of scheme that aroused cheers and applause.”
...

“When he [Joseph Smith, Jr.] was there we had some conversation in which in every instance I did not fail to affirm that what I had said was strictly true. A dirty, nasty, filthy affair of his and Fanny Alger's was talked over in which I strictly declared that I had never deviated from the truth in the matter, and as I supposed was admitted by himself.”

- Oliver Cowdery, Letter dated January 21, 1838
...
“... my father... was taught the plural wife doctrine, and was told by Joseph, the Prophet, three times, to go and take a certain woman as his wife; but not till he commanded him in the name of the Lord did he obey. At the same time Joseph told him not to divulge this secret, not even to my mother, for fear that she would not receive it... This was one of the greatest test of his faith he had ever experienced. The thought of deceiving the kind and faithful wife of his youth... was more than he felt able to bear.... his sorrow and misery were increased by the thought of my mother hearing it from some other source, which would no doubt separate them, and he shrank from the thought of such a thing, or of causing her any unhappiness.”

- Life of Heber C. Kimball (Apostle), by Orson F. Whitney, pp. 335-336

Here:

Quote

I had always entertained the strict ideas of virtue, and I felt as a married man that this was to me, outside of this principle, an appalling thing to do. The idea of going and asking a young lady to be married to me when I had already a wife! I had always entertained the strictest regard of chastity….With the feelings I had entertained, nothing but a knowledge of God, and the revelations of God, and the truth of them, could have induced me to embrace such a principle as this.

John Taylor,

The Life of John Taylor

[salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2002], 100

And so on.

Thanks,

-Smac

 

[JustAnAustralian]

So let's say that polygamy is completely done away with doctrinally.

What is the plan for those that have already been sealed to multiple people?

Will all but the first sealing be cancelled?